Have worked in both.
While the person who brought the cubicle concept to market for Herman Miller, Bob Propst, claimed regrets for the dehumanizing aspects his actions, the aural and visual noise of open areas is extremely distracting.
The cube walls here barely block out the phone conversations of the people working through insurance claims for spouses, college loan problems for their children, credit card issues, ad nauseum, ad infinitim.
At least within the confines of my cubie I can don my headphones (with the benefit of a convex mirror to let me know when someone has come up behind me) and focus on my projects/tasks. When our team needs to meet, which is seldom since each of us has very distinct areas of responsibilities; off we go the conf room.
An open area may serve a group of co-workers who are highly interdependent working against continues deliverable deadlines.
So until I can transition to my home office, head on over to
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_O_5ef49N5I&mode=related&search= 
